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If Gatsby was a comment on America and the excesses of the 20's I thought I'd write a short story about the excess of the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. It is my feeble attempt at making something that speaks about that situation and how America is sustained. The story is below:
When the financial world collapsed in 2008, trying to understand the cause and effects of it put me on my quest for the true story of the mythical holy grail. I found it in 2010 on a cross country train ride, and took notes on what I’d found, but forgot about them for a decade. I only rediscovered the notes when going through some old stuff in preparation for yet another painful move. Rather than pack everything up for yet another laborious and gruelling trip, I thought I’d sell some old junk on the internet. At the back of the closet was an old macbook that I hadn’t used for many years, and while cleaning it off I came across some files from that time in my life. Thinking back on the ten year old notes I had to put myself in the mindset of when I wrote them.
I studied Computer Science in college and then went out to the west coast to work at a special effects studio. I always liked the idea of making my dreams a visual reality, and with special effects work I was able to do that. That was why the housing crisis confused me so much.
After 2008 I tried to get my brother to explain finance to me. I couldn't understand how the whole world had shut down because of people buying houses and trying to make their dreams real. One day I was trying to get my brother to explain it and he said to me, “It’s all made up Don, all of it, you think that some bank loans you money from what people put in their savings accounts? That’s bullshit, they make it out of thin air and give it to anybody who they think will make it real. And after ‘08 the government is doing it on a scale that dwarfs what those wastes of medicare in Congress approve.” I didn’t understand what he was saying or how it was possible, but he worked at a bank, so I figured he must understand it at a deeper level than I did.
I was working on some software feature to help render the next big blockbuster movie when I got laid off. Feeling completely miserable, my brother reached out and consoled me, offering that I could stay with him on the East Coast. “Come on out here and lick your wounds bro, stay with me and keep me company while I deal with assholes all day,” he said. With my time off I began obsessing about the idea that you could make money out of thin air. If my brother was right, how could I have it happen for me? I remembered one of the literature electives I’d taken in college teaching the story of Parzival and the quest for a holy grail that could make anything appear out of thin air. I wished for something like that in my own life desperately because money was tight.
I’d just mailed most of my meager possessions to my brother in Jersey City and booked a train cross country. I figured if I had to give up on my dream I might as well see the country. They had just put wifi on the trains and I thought I could enjoy the ride and entertain myself while I rode if it got boring. The story of the grail became an obsession, like Midas I just became fixated on the idea that if I quested for something or wished the right way that all my problems would be solved. The hope of being financially stable in this economy became a dream. I went back to my college notes and read about Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival again. The notes said that in the beginning of the Parzival story it claims to be based on an earlier story by someone named Kyot.
As the train left Los Angeles station, I was sitting in the club car, and decided to see if there was anything on the internet about the earlier version. I started searching, and began to use more and more esoteric sources. I checked French search engines, academic search engines, the internet archive, anything I could find. After about an hour, I came across a page in French, hosted out of a university in Germany, by an adjunct professor there. Using Google Translate I was able to get the gist of the page. A professor had found a rare manuscript attributed to Kyot that seemed to be the origin of the story of Parzival! He had transcribed it and put it on the page with some scans, but it was in medieval French. Google Translate seemed to be able to make some sense of it but it would occasionally get garbled or confused. I was excited beyond belief and decided I would read it through the train ride, and take notes as I read. Going over the notes now they’re very incomplete and are a mix of plot summary paragraphs and quotes that I thought stood out. The web page seems to have disappeared in the present day, and I can’t find a record of it or anything written by Kyot anywhere. All I have of the experience are the notes I wrote on that trip, mixed with some descriptions of the train ride.
This story starts off with a nobleman who has two children, one by a lady who is not his wife, although she is a high born member of the court, and then when he is cast out of the court due to the infidelity, he has a child with a woman he marries, who is of peasant stock. There is talk that she descends from a heretic monk but no one is sure. While the high born child takes his place in court, due to his illegitimate heritage it is the peasant child that he considers his own and names him Percival. Percival always aspires to court, but his father dissuades him due to his past experiences. He befriends a local holy hermit who gives him a supposed holy relic. It is a rod with a small glass sphere at the top with a piece of wood embedded in it that is supposedly a piece of the true cross. The hermit has a touching set of lines.
“Though you may now be of simple stock, take this that one day if you do become mighty that you rule over what subjects you may have with the true spirit of Christ, feeding the poor, healing the sick, and all with love in your heart.”
Percival goes to Arthur’s court eventually, after his father dies without telling him his true heritage. He is desperate to achieve nobility and feels embarrassed by his simple upbringing. On the way there he bests a knight who has been terrorizing the kingdom and impresses Arthur’s court. They at first don’t know what to do with him, and then send him on quests where he meets a woman in the woods. She knows the holy hermit of his childhood, and reminds him of the relic the hermit has given him, healing him after a particularly tough battle and telling him the following lines.
“Like the hermit I live in the wild and we share its bounty, but much like us the people of Arthur’s court also live in their own wild. All provide a bounty but Arthur’s court however noble their title, do not understand the nobility of a sparrow.”
He returns to Arthur’s court and they praise him. A young maid in Arthur’s court seems to be fond of him but before he can start to court her a wanderer enters the court and tells the tale of a Holy Grail, one that can grant its possessor all he wishes for as long as he lives. The wanderer says only one totally dedicated to courtly ways and in alignment with the holy order and the body politic, will ever be able to claim it. Arthur chooses to send all his knights to look for it except for Percival because he believes him not to be of noble birth. Percival begs to go, and then when they prevent him the maid who’s fond of him performs a trick where she sends him on a quest to defend her honour and that her honour can only be defended if he finds the grail.
He wanders in the woods for ages, and there’s a lot with him becoming more and more accustomed to living in the woods, when he comes across a castle and at the foot of the castle is a starving peasant holy man. When he approaches the peasant begs for food and Percival gives it to him, as he feeds him from his own supplies the castle disappears almost instantly, but the peasant thanks him and says that, yes, the castle was the grail castle and that it only appears to a questor once, that he had quested for it, but was now left hungry.
Percival leaves and goes back to Arthur’s court, where he is mocked and called a failure. The court is highly contemptuous at the idea that he would trade the infinite bounty of the grail for the pleasure of a poor nobody. It was around this time that I was about to sleep on the first night of my trip. I looked at the land rolling by and wished for my own grail, to not only change my fortunes, but give me the meaningful life that I had so longed for going out to the west coast. I’d hoped to fit into the modern world, build a life, maybe have a family, and mature into the same kind of person my dad had been, at least the good parts. I slept in my seat that night but woke up once or twice to see the starry sky over the west. Mountains, snow, and fields all passed by and made me feel how much of America I had no idea about.
The next day I went to the site again and navigated to the place I left off. I got a cheeseburger and beer at the cafe. Picking up where Percival was leaving Arthur’s court in disgrace. He goes back to the forest and tangles with various other Knights, all trying to find the grail castle. They all keep trying to tangle with him, trying to get him to tell them the way. Eventually he runs into his half brother and they fight. The fight is intense as it says.
“Each half traded mighty blows with the other, each half on the edge of death. No quarter was asked for and none was given.”
Eventually Percival slays his brother and takes his armour and horse, which are much nicer than his own. He wanders through the woods here and there until he comes across the woman of the woods again. She mistakes him for his brother and says that he will find the grail castle. She tells him that the brother of the court has a brother of the woods who could not enter the castle because the castle is too noble for him. He realizes that he is the brother of the wood and chokes back tears as he rides away. Distraught at the idea he has murdered his own brother he lets the reins go on his horse and lets the animal go on its own. The horse runs through the woods and arrives at the grail castle with the same beggar in front of it. The beggar stands in his way asking for alms and the horse riding on its own tramples him and enters the castle. When he passes through the gate he is greeted with great cheers. As he dismounts he sees the same wanderer as at Arthur’s court. The Wanderer greets him and says
“Greetings noble Percival, you have succeeded in your quest and now have attained the all powerful grail. It can not leave this castle, but its power can reach the ends of the earth. It, and I its guardian, are at your command, whatever you desire merely tell me and the stone will yield it”
“It shines a bright green color and looks as though it were broken from something, where did it come from?” asked Percival. The guardian replied “It is part of the lord’s holy chariot and throne brought down by an angel to bring God’s bounty to earth.” “Then my first request is for prosperity throughout the land and all the mighty lands of Arthur’s court as much as they ask for” “So it shall be.”
And so the green stone gives wealth and food and prosperity to Arthur’s court and to all those at the grail castle and to all the people of the land as much as they ask for. While the peasants merely ask for alms and meals, the court asks for regal items befitting mighty kings, queens, ladies and knights. At the grail court prosperity reigns. Percival is treated to a mighty feast every day. He summons the lady who was fond of him at Arthur’s court and they feast every day for every meal. When the banquet is finished the remains are thrown to the animals in the fields of the grail kingdom. Every day more food is made, and the peasants have their alms so there is no trouble. The ladies of the grail court wear a new dress every day and the food is spiced to the finest degree. The nobles begin to bathe in wine to keep their youth. Every day is greater than the last. Neighboring kingdoms look on with envy as the grail kingdom and Arthur’s court revel. As it is not only beneficial, but holy and blessed by god, the other courts begin to believe it was their right through purity and courtliness that they are to have this prosperity. Other kingdoms attempt to imitate the grail kingdoms manners and opulence in order to get the spiritual rewards, without the grail however they lay waste to their land seeking to imitate the holy kingdoms more and more. Only the nobles of these foriegn lands seem to get any of the riches while the serfs work harder and harder.
At this point the train pulled into Chicago and I had to switch to a New York bound one, what had been vast open land was transformed into cities and towns with occasional forests. The New York train was a short ride and I hoped to finish the Percival book before I got to my brother’s apartment. From the number of pages left it didn’t seem there was much to go, and everything had almost gotten the happy ending I’d imagined, or at least the one that Eschenbach’s Parzival had.
The Chicago to New York train was colder and didn’t have a dome car, just a cafe. The wifi was spotty and I grabbed another burger and a beer. The text continues with banquets daily, and as months go by and the neighboring kingdoms continue to sink into squalor in attempts to imitate the blessed courts in order to get God’s blessing, the remains from the daily banquets fill the peasants' fields. Percival asks the grail keeper what he should do, should he help the peasants further? The keeper replies
“Should you feast them, would they not neglect their toil in the fields? Like the limbs of the body they each must do their task. They posess no nobility. Only those of noble blood know how to rule and enjoy fine things, for the noble is the head of the body, guiding all the body’s parts”.
Now not only do the peasants begin to get ill like the people of the neighboring kingdoms, but the nobles of the court begin to get pain in their hands and boils on their skin. The daily wine baths are often mixed with the puss from their boils and their swollen joints appear to only hurt more. All the nobles begin to take on a light green hue. When Percival asks the keeper what is wrong the keeper replies “They need only more than we have now the grail must produce more. For nobles too much is not enough.” “Make it so.” replies Percival. The boils become more severe. Arthur becomes greatly ill and it is at this point that Percival becomes mistrustful of the keeper. He asks the keeper how to heal Arthur and the keeper responds that more is needed. Percival feels lost. He has attained the ultimate courtly boon, from God himself, and it seems to only sicken people. He remembers the rod the holy man gave him as a child and gets it from his things. Looking at it he feels a deep warmth and remembers the hermit’s words about healing the sick. At this point Percival confronts the keeper,
“Your magic is one of poison, the land is full of waste, this mighty green stone brings sickness and death with it. Who are you and what have you done?”
He confronts the keeper with the rod. The keeper recoils and then says
“Foolish Percival you have confronted me and by the power of the true cross I must confess. I am the keeper of the grail, for I tore it from heaven when I was thrown down to earth like lightning. I am the adversary, the tempter, the angel of light himself. I was the one to test Job. The grail is the very stone that I tested Christ with, offering to use it to make bread. He passed his test, but you have failed and you are suffering the curse of prosperity which he avoided. The boon of the power is not in the gift, but in the purity and wisdom of the heart that will use it for good. This is why the throne brought to earth brings nothing but misery, but in the presence of God gives life.”
Lost and enraged Percival takes the rod the holy man had given him and smashes the grail. When he does all the bounty disappears and all the nobles' fine dresses and apparel are turned to peasants clothes and rags. The castle fades to a dung heap and all the nobles are stumbling around it. Percival returns to Arthur’s court where the king is recovering rapidly. Arthur asks Percival what has occurred and Percival responds that they had forgotten Christ's poverty and he gives him the rod the holy man gave to him and tells Arthur it will guide his rule to serve the poor and feed the hungry and heal the sick. He then returns to the wood, the maid who was fond of him at Arthur’s court joins him and they choose to live out a simple life away from the court and all its charms and riches. On his deathbed he calls for Arthur to allow him to touch the rod with the true cross in it and they bury him with it next to his wife.
I arrived in New York and took the PATH train to Jersey City and my brother met me warmly. Later that night over beer and chinese food I asked him what he meant that the banks and government made money out of thin air and he said that was the simplest way to explain how it works, but that it had happened forever and was not the easiest way to make money. “Just bet on the market, it’s where the imaginary money goes anyway.” he said.
As I finished reading my notes I thought of that time fondly. Now, ten years after the trip it seemed like a distant memory. I scoured the internet for anything that would mention anything about the earlier version of Percival without any luck, and settled in for another warm winter. I was short of what I needed for a downpayment for any kind of property, and after the pandemic I’d been laid off again. My life had seen a brief uptick when I moved out with my brother, but was now in a deeper dive than ever before, both fiscally and emotionally, I had less youth to gamble with and felt more alone in the land of the free. The notes of the story seemed to be the only thing that gave me comfort as I looked around a broken land.
I follow copyright expirations like other people follow NBA draft picks. A few years ago the Sonny Bono copyright extension act began allowing new works to enter the public domain every year, 95 years from publication. The first year to be released was 1923, but the year I anticipated was 1925, which happens to expire on January first 2021. I had plans, you see. The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925 and I thought there would be some amazing things to say about the ultimate work about established wealth and the american dream belonging to all of us. My plan was to write a play and have it performed January first, or as close as possible. My wife works in the theater, and though I had never written a play, I was convinced that with her help and the cleverness of knowing the copyright expiration in advance I could do something substantial. I gave myself the entire year to write it. Then covid happened. I was stuck working from home the entire year in a shoebox apartment.
But it wasn’t just covid. As I began the first two acts seemed straightforward, a retelling of the parts of Gatsby that I would change and then a survey of all the changes that were possible because the work now truly belonged to everyone. A black passing Gatsby, a transgender man as Gatsby, a handicapped Gatsby. All the permutations of identity so that the story truly became a telling that everyone could escape the circumstances of their birth and beat out established wealth on moral grounds. It was after these two parts things became murky. What did it mean that everybody owned the American dream now?
I decided in my story Gatsby would achieve the goal that he yearned for while grasping at the green light from the end of his dock. He would go back through time and alter history. Instead of altering the metaphorical prize of Daisy’s love he would alter his own circumstances. What alteration was still up in the air. Would he travel to see Sigmund Freud and be cured of his obsession with Daisy, or perhaps disenfranchise Tom so that it was his own ancestors who struck it rich. What exactly did I want to say about this new era where we all owned the American dream.
For a while I did research on the LLano Colony in California. The LLano colony was an attempt at a socialist utopia, started by a former vice presidential candidate who had been on the socialist ticket with Eugene Debs. I researched Debs and the socialist movement in america. While Gatsby was wooing Daisy in his military uniform Debs was serving time in prison for speaking out against the war. In 1920 while still in jail he got 3.4 percent of the national vote. The 2020 primary reminded me of Debs and a socialist america and what it meant for something to belong to everyone.
A while later I found a quote from Fitzgerald that while he was writing Gatsby he was reading the work of Oswald Spengler. I glanced through spengler and though now discredited, he had a theory that societies were like Organisms, that they are born, grow, thrive, and die. Spengler called the western civilization from about the 10th century to the present the faustian society because of its quest for knowledge. Spengler believed that after about the year 2000 western society would decline into what he called caesarism by which he meant authoritarian rule. I thought the parallels to an authoritarian trump were interesting and I had planned to have excerpts from Trump in the play.
But what did it mean that it belonged to everyone? If I was to take this as a hopeful sign, that was what I wanted the focus to be. The idea I wanted to amplify was that we were in a new era where America belonged to everybody, maybe not as a socialist paradise, but at least the symbol of american opportunity, the great american novel, belonged to everyone. I was going to say that we were like the dutch settlers at the end of Gatsby seeing a new land of promise observing manhattan for the first time. I thought about this metaphor for several weeks.
As I said my wife works in theater. One of her co-workers is native american, and she directed a play on zoom by a native author. I think if I had been with anyone else the thoughts might not have bothered me. But I kept thinking, that land of promise that the dutch settlers found had people living there. Early on in the brainstorming process before researching the LLano colony, I had wondered if I would have Gatsby join some group of native americans out west. When I thought about the idea I realized I knew nothing about native society. Seeing my wife’s co-worker’s production I realized what the prosperity of the dutch settlers was based on. It wasn’ a new world after all, it was an invaded one, and one in which we had created a fantasy land on the bones of countless people.
Those dead people, they were part of the ‘everybody’ , and I knew nothing about them. They had their own society, with its own problems, and instead of sharing a fertile and beautiful land with them, we took it, killed most of them, and then proceeded to treat people who arrived after our initial theft as subservient for fear they would take from us the way we took from the original inhabitants. I thought about the world, in many ways spent, passing peak output of easily available resources and choking on the waste produced from their consumption. That was about when I decided that maybe the world didn’t need my sequel to Gatsby.
Maybe instead of another overconfident white man’s bold statement about prosperity and opportunity, I’d leave a space for another voice, one that might show us a way that we could all live with each other, sharing what’s left of the bounty of this world without overharvesting from it. Someone who knew something about how to live in a society not obsessed with consumption. Maybe that Gatsby sequel could come from another place in the world where they had figured out to live in some sort of symbiotic relationship with this world. I certainly haven’t and I don’t think that’s what I have to share with this world. I hope the real author of The Great Gatsby 2 will have something beautiful for us. I know I’m anxious to see it.